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Microsoft contest solicits new security technology

Thursday - 4/5/2012, 9:01am EDT

Microsoft received 20 submissions in a contest to come up with new security technologies. The company's Blue Hat Prize will pay the winner $200,000.

ComputerWorld reported that Microsoft was hoping to find technology it could build into its Windows operating system. The company plans to fly the top three winners to the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in July.

The Blue Hat Prize is not a bug bounty system where companies pay hackers to find weaknesses in software. Instead, Microsoft was looking for innovations that could protect Windows from whole classes of bugs. Submitters keep their intellectual property rights but must license it for free to Microsoft.

This story is part of Federal News Radio's daily Cybersecurity Update. For more cybersecurity news, click here.